Po Nudo - TAC - Basic (08 07)

Senator Po Nudo pledges his people's allegiance to the Confederacy of Independence Systems and joins the Separatist Council. At the end of the Clone Wars, Palpatine sends Vader to eliminate the council members when they become unneccessary to his plans.

Fans always knew that Ponda Baba and Po Nudo were both Aqualish, but it took longer to figure out why they looked so differently from each other (besides the obvious reasons). You see, there are three different types of Aqualish including the Aquala, the Quara and the Ualaq species. The Ualaq are probably the most different since their unique characteristics are from genetic mutation, which is exactly what Po Nudo is, a mutated Aqualish. Their mutated traits include three-fingered hands and four eyes instead of flipper or fully clawed hands and two eyes respectively. They look similar, but there are enough differences to consider them two separate creatures. Po Nudo was a little more refined than Ponda Baba as he was a member of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and a Senator of the planet Ando and not some evil doctor’s sidekick. His tenure was cut short when he was murdered by Anakin Skywalker, now Darth Vader, on Mustafar shortly after Order 66 was enacted. But even before this event, Po Nudo made sparse appearances in the Expanded Universe, but there is really little known about him besides what we see in the films. First seen in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones, Po Nudo was a very important actor in the Separatist agenda and if he had trusted fewer people, he may still be alive today.

The Hasbro action figure of Po Nudo is nice to have, but he unfortunately doesn’t look anything like his onscreen appearance (judging by the face alone). The color of his skin is completely wrong and the shape of his head tusks and hair just is all wrong making this action figure a very unfortunate and complete mess. The good news is that his costume looks great. He has ball-jointed arms, but he is essentially a statue the rest of the way down and you won’t get a plethora of play out of him. But on the bright side, his outfit is surprisingly well done and one of the finer dressed Separatist members we have received to date, We would of course had preferred if Hasbro gave us a standard action figure with soft-goods robes, but they decided again to go this route and since they did, we think it is done fairly well. But why the head sculpt is so off bothers us. It’s not like this figure came out in 2002 before Episode II and Episode III. No, Hasbro had plenty of time to check out source materials and get Po Nudo perfect the first time. But it didn’t turn out that way, so what collectors are left with is a just an average figure.

The reason we are so concerned that Hasbro didn’t get this figure right is because we don’t expect to see him ever attempted again. While absolutely anything is possible, Po Nudo didn’t prove himself at retail and he is such a background character, we were fortunate to get this the first time, so we won’t hold our breath for an update. Still, since this action figure will not be the centerpiece of your collection, it may not need the update we are hankering for because it does function as a good enough figure for now. If Hasbro does have any plans to revisit this figure, we would at least ask for a major overhaul in the way the portrait has been painted. If you love your duplicitous Separatists, then Po Nudo is absolutely the action figure for you. Don’t expect him to rough up whiny young heroes in the local bar or instill a sense of fear in the rest of your figures, because Po Nudo just isn’t that type of action figure. But do expect him to suffer a similar injury at the hands of a lightsaber wielder (which leads to his untimely death), because that is about all Po Nudo can do. This doesn’t mean he is a bad action figure, he just isn’t one of the best. The outfit chosen for this release is not his Senate garb, but the robes seen on both Utapau and Mustafar in Episode III. It would be nice to one day see him in the outfit he worse in the Senate as well.